Benchmark: Random string 3 - MeasureThat.net

HTML Preparation code:

<!--your preparation HTML code goes here-->

Script Preparation code:

var registeredIds = new Set();
function generate() {
    let id = Math.random();
    while(this.registeredIds.has(id)) {
      id = Math.random();
    }

    registeredIds.add(id);
    return id;
}

Tests:

generate
generate(10)
crypto.randomUUID()
crypto.randomUUID()

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
generate
crypto.randomUUID()

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: one year ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/131.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 131 on Mac OS X 10.15.7

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
generate	2531979.2 Ops/sec
crypto.randomUUID()	801178.8 Ops/sec

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model gpt-4o-mini, generated one year ago):

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

The provided benchmark focuses on generating random identifiers using two different methods: a custom function (`generate`) and the built-in JavaScript method (`crypto.randomUUID()`).

### Comparisons

1. **Custom Function (`generate`)**:
   - This function generates a random identifier by using `Math.random()`. It maintains a `Set` called `registeredIds` to ensure that generated IDs are unique. If a randomly generated ID already exists in the `Set`, it generates a new ID until it finds a unique one.
   - **Pros**:
     - Customizability: You can modify the function to change how unique IDs are generated or enforced.
     - No dependencies: It relies only on built-in JavaScript functions.
   - **Cons**:
     - Performance: The use of a loop to ensure uniqueness may lead to poorer performance when generating a large number of IDs or when there is a high likelihood of collisions (IDs repeating).
     - Simplicity: The randomness and uniqueness are only as good as `Math.random()` can provide, which may not be suitable for all security contexts.
     - Overhead: Keeping track of registered IDs could consume more memory and slow down generation for large numbers of unique IDs.

2. **Built-in Method (`crypto.randomUUID()`)**:
   - This method generates a universally unique identifier (UUID) using the Web Crypto API, which is designed to provide secure randomness.
   - **Pros**:
     - Security: The randomness is derived from cryptographically strong random number generation, making it suitable for contexts where uniqueness and unpredictable values are critical, such as authentication tokens.
     - Simplicity: It directly produces a unique identifier without the need for additional logic to maintain uniqueness.
     - Performance: Typically more efficient for use cases that require many unique values because it has an optimized generation process.
   - **Cons**:
     - Less customizable: You cannot alter how the UUID is generated or its format (although this is desirable in many cases).

### Benchmark Results

The benchmark results indicate the number of executions per second for each method:
- The `generate()` function yielded approximately **2,531,979 executions per second**, which demonstrates high performance under the tested condition.
- The `crypto.randomUUID()` method yielded around **801,178 executions per second**, which is significantly lower in comparison.

### Other Considerations

- **Use Cases**: The choice between using a custom solution like `generate` or the standard library method `crypto.randomUUID()` largely depends on the specific requirements of the application. For most scenarios where average randomness is acceptable and you are generating a few IDs, the custom method might be sufficient. However, for applications requiring high security and uniqueness guarantees (e.g., user sessions, transaction IDs), `crypto.randomUUID()` is the better choice.
  
- **Alternatives**: Other alternatives for generating unique identifiers in JavaScript could include:
  - Using libraries such as **UUID.js** or **Nano ID**, which are both designed to generate unique IDs and may offer different configurations for output length and format.
  - Using the **Date.now()** function combined with a random component, which can provide timestamp-based unique identifiers, though they may not be as secure as cryptographic methods.

In summary, this benchmark evaluates two methods of generating random identifiers, showcasing a trade-off between performance, security, and customizability, depending on the selected approach.

Related benchmarks:

Random string 3 (version: 1)

Comparing performance of: generate vs crypto.randomUUID()

Created: one year ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

generate

crypto.randomUUID()

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model gpt-4o-mini, generated one year ago):